After more than a year of campaigning, the election tomorrow–not at all to exclude early voters–comes down to this: 1) Will the pause in the damage Hillary suffered at the polls with the undecided voters due to FBI Director Comey’s shenanigans, continue? 2) Will Comey’s exoneration of Hillary from any wrongdoing connected to the newly discovered email on ex-Congressman Weiner’s server produce some recovery of the independents who left Hillary over the insinuations–and Trump’s vicious attacks on her over it? 3) Will anything unexpected from outside of the presidential campaigning pop-up at the last minute to influence the voting. Politicians will be holding their breathes as the hours pass. I won’t get into Director Comey’s decision to interfere with the race, in the first place although I do have strong feelings about it. But it unquestionably did change Hillary’s support. In the period between Comey’s announcements, Clinton’s poll numbers dropped from a comfortable 6.8 percent down to a dangerously low 1.8 percent. Of importance to the undecideds decision-making, Hillary’s trust numbers dropped 3...

What you say? The world may hang in the balance and Americans don’t care; they have joined the craze that has mushroomed all over the world, like popcorn popping. What am I talking about? Why Pokemon-Go, of course. Haven’t you seen otherwise normal-seeming people getting their exercise, walking fast, and with their heads focused in on the cell phones while frantically moving their fingers on the keyboard? Watch out, it looks like they will walk right into the intersection. Will they get hit by that car coming? What are they doing? They are looking at images of the area in front of their smart phone’s camera, trying to find, capture, destroy little cartoon characters that pop up on their screens right in front of them. Pokemon. Yes the same as those annoying little critters found on trading cards in an earlier generation. If you had children of the right age during that period you surely saw them obsessed with those cards. Hell, you might even have felt the...

Donald Trump has now been crowned King of the Republican Party. It’s semi-official now. Hillary’s strategy of minority and women should net her most of the large population states. But what about the states with low minority citizenship? Those mostly went for Bernie and Donald. Well, you first have to differentiate between those that are Trump strongholds according to the polls–despite Trump’s high “unfavorables.” The others are considered borderline states, i.e., Trump may be favored, but under the right circumstances they are winnable for Hillary, even in the face of her own very high “unfavorable” ratings–again according to the latest polls. On paper Hillary has a tough challenge to win any of those borderline states. Her minority base just isn’t there. And face it, among blue-collar white male voters, and their issues with her gender, combined with Tump’s already demonstrated appeal with to them, Hillary Clinton is not going to gain much traction. What potential inroads she does have, will not work without a new zinger issue that hits home. And “home” to blue...

In so many ways this primary season is full of serious, but often amusing, ironies. Mainstream Republican regulars and elected officials might have to run for re-election on a ticket headed by a candidate they not only have distaste for, but likely one whom nearly 2/3s of the general electorate have indicated they disliked. And don’t forget that a not insignificant percentage of the voters simply check off their candidate for President, and then “pull the lever,” or vote for the same party’s nominee for all of the others offices up for election. Against this backdrop consider the only candidates who presently qualify for nomination (according to the rules, which are susceptible to change at the beginning of the party’s convention), are: Donald Trump, who has insulted almost every known minority (including disabled persons), either directly or indirectly. He has been likened by some of the world leaders to Adolph Hitler, by many others simply as an unsteady bully. 560,000 British citizens signed, and sent to Parliament, a petition...

Hillary Clinton, like Donald Trump on the Republican side, has a big lead in national polls. Yet, like him, she is still vulnerable due to her sizable net unfavorable ratings. Bernie Sanders, on the other hand, according to polls, is viewed more likable by voters. I would argue that he is also benefitting from relatively low name recognition and how little many voters know about him outside of the early primary states–the one’s he’s campaigned heavily in. Those, I would remind readers, have not been representative of the rest of the country. This renders his stronger-than-Hillary match-up showings against the various Republican hopefuls unreliable. I believe that outside of his core support, mostly younger voters and ideologues, he is viewed simply as a likable alternative to Hillary. This is an abstraction and holds only temporary advantage. Consider the huge lead Hillary had in early polls. This was destined to erode. When you see a candidate close up, you also see his or her warts. You can count on...

Without an early debate, or a perceived competitive contest, there has been less media attention, and fewer national polls of the Democratic race. Most of the major pollsters were two to three weeks outdated on the Democratic side by the time the media were focusing on the effects of some outrageous “Donaldisms” on the Republican electorate. Those older polls showed Hillary with a commanding lead over Bernie Sanders, and beating all of the Republican contenders handily–with her early numbers when matched against Donald Trump among her highest. Conversely, Bernie Sanders, with low name-recognition was shown doing much poorer in those match-ups against the Republican hopefuls than Hillary…Though I agree with him on many issues, I can’t imagine Bernie Sanders’ status as a Socialist allowing him to win the general election for president. America just isn’t ready for that. It would be a George McG0vern-Richard Nixon race all over again.